Last weekend David and I went to the Silverdocs festival, which is a documentary festival put on every year by the American Film Institute and Discovery Communications, since AFI has a major office and theater here in Silver Spring, and Discovery’s world headquarters is here as well. There were many great films shown that covered topics of social injustice and politics. You know, the things that really matter. However, the one documentary that piqued my interest was Helvetica. No, no. You understood me correctly. It’s a feature length documentary about a font. Hey, where are you going? Come back and finish reading this! Like I was saying… a font.
I had never realized until seeing this film, just how ubiquitous Helvetica is. It was designed to be easy to read and neutral, to not take on any meaning of its own. Which is why it is seen in signs worldwide. When you read a sign written in Helvetica, you don’t think “oh, that’s a pretty font” or “that font is edgy” or “wait, is that a lowercase ‘I’ or a capital ‘L’?” No, you think “that sign says ‘move the fuck out of the way or you’re going to get killed!” The message is not lost.
The name Helvetica is Latin for Switzerland, its country of origin. A much nicer sounding name than its original name from 1958: Neue Haas Grotesk.
I highly recommend this film to all fellow nerds.
In other modernist news, Philip Johnson’s Glass House has been opened to the public. However, seeing as how the tickets are sold out through the end of 2007 and that entry costs $500, I think I’ll hold off on visiting for the time being.
[google -7125414172845389314 nolink]
0 Responses to “Helvetica”